Karola Regent – Settling In

INT: And then after the war, what happened after the war? Did you go on to university, did you get a job?

PR: You had to do war work during the war.

KR: Yes, I did some war work, now what was it, yes, because of my ability to speak German, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, I had to do translations and plan routes for our troops to, in Germany where to go and so on.

INT: That’s a very responsible job for a young girl?

KR: It was, yeah [laughter].

INT: And were you still at school at this time or had you left school?

KR: Oh, I had left school.

PR: You were 18 and liable for national service, national service at 18.

KR: Yes.

INT: That would have been very responsible indeed. And then what happened after the war ended?

PR: You could have gone to Germany with the Control..

KR: What?

PR: You could have gone to Germany with the Control Commission?

KR: I didn’t.

PR: But you chose not to.

KR: Yes, I could have gone to Germany with the Control Commission, but I didn’t, I wanted to go to university and so I took a crash course in Latin, which one needed in those days and other courses. And applied and got into Bedford College in Regents Park.

INT: To study what?

KR: English literature, English and literature in particular and I had to do Anglo-Saxon of course [laughter].

PR: How could you afford to go to university?

INT: Did you get a grant?

KR: A grant, didn’t I [say] , oh yes, because I’d worked for the war work, for the Minister of Economic Warfare, so I got a grant.

INT: That was very good.

INT: Were you still living with Lotte at that time?

KR: Yes.

INT: And were you aware by the end of the war that your parents had perished?

KR: Well, in 1942 we heard that father had died.

KR: A Red Cross letter, yes. And we didn’t know quite what happened to my mother, ever did we?

PR: No. They were

KR: We think she was taken to ?

PR: Lodz.

INT: Going to back to your studies after you got your degree did you go into teaching or what did you do with it?

KR: Well I did have to do some teaching, yes, I went into teaching, but I didn’t really want to stay in teaching, so I took a course in shorthand and typing and applied for a job in a paper for, on a paper. And this was a sort of a weekly paper I think, but then afterwards I switched to a very good daily paper and wrote, I wrote reports and that sort of thing, but I had my own, what was it called?

INT: Column, your own column?

KR: I wrote a diary, I pretended to be somebody or other and wrote a regular diary.

INT: Oh, that’s great, for which newspaper?

KR: The Eastern Daily Press.

INT: Oh, very good.

KR: In Norwich.

INT: Excellent.

INT: And when did you meet your husband?

KR: Well, I was married before, but not for long, he got, it was the year of the flu, when everybody died of, you know, and he died and that’s when I went into journalism. And I didn’t meet my husband until, we got married in 19.. [laughter]

INT: So you were going to tell us when you met your partner, your current partner Peter and where

INT: So you think you met in 1954?

PR: Well, this is the story there you’re often telling the world, I’ll leave you to tell it. It’s a very unexciting story. Do you not recall?

INT: You tell us.

KR: Well, I remember seeing him, when I used to with my boss go for walks I used to see a handsome young chap sitting under a tree reading and I …

INT: And that was Peter?

PR: I’d come down from university at a loose end, I was working as a forestry labourer, in fact, in my hometown and I was applying for jobs and I needed someone to type my curriculum vitae. I had no typewriter, it looked better if it was typed. And so I asked a friend to do this because I knew he ran a typing school and he said yes, on one condition you can come and help with the church fete. And I went to help the church fete and she was the reporter that came.

KR: Yes, I was a reporter then and that’s right, that’s how we met.

INT: And did you come to Scotland soon after that or did you spend most of your married life in England.

KR: No, no, we came to Scotland when my daughter was eight and she’s now 50 something, she’s now about 55.

INT: So in the 1960s you came to Scotland?

KR: Yeah, I think.

INT: What brought you to Scotland and to this beautiful house overlooking the Tay?

KR: Anyway, I got a job here.

INT: As a reporter here?

KR: I was teaching to begin with and then yes.

INT: And so you have a daughter?

KR: Yes, just one daughter.

INT: Lovely, and does she live in Scotland?

KR: No, she lives in Bristol and she’s, you may have seen some of her programme, wildlife programmes on television.

INT: She’s a producer of these programmes?

KR: Well, she has produced some of these, but she’s now freelancing. Yes, she had a regular spot of wildlife things on, Peter will remember better than I, and she still does some wildlife work, but she lives in Bristol.